"with the most obvious being that poor people cannot afford to eat more fruit and vegetables"
This is simply not true.
In fact, the least expensive foods are fresh vegetables.
Aside from the homeless, most poor people have some means to cook as well, giving them access to an astonishing variety of meals.
Meat, milk, cheese, often expensive.
Fruit and veg is the cheapest thing in the store.
Processed/fast foods are more than likely the culprit in so many ways, it seems wherever you are in America, you're arms length from something massively processed, salty, fully of fats/sugars etc..
A 10 lb bag of potatoes is $5 at Safeway in SF. That makes quite a number of 'servings' of McD's fries.
Avg ground beef price in US is $5.50/pound in 2018, 1.8 ounces in McD hamburger = 62 cents for the meat.
Wonderbread 20 pack of buns is $3 = 15 cents for the bun.
A slice of tomato, bit of lettuce = not much.
So the burger made at home is less than 90 cents.
The soda is surely less expensive, especially on sale.
So at least for 'fries, burger and coke' in the cheapest place, it's still cheaper to cook - and of course the 'expensive' part is the meat.
It's very inexpensive to buy and cook vegetables, and most fruits are cheap as well.
Meats etc. get a little tricky, but still cheaper than fast food.
I'm really surprised at the comments indicating otherwise, this is pretty easy to see for people that buy food, I didn't think this would be contentious.
"This is a vague claim. Are you looking at the price per"
It's not vague at all.
By basically any nutritional measure, Fruit and Veg are the best deal. Even on the basis of protein, which might sometimes be tricky on 'mostly F&V diet' - it's cheaper - see your own data points for the many Veg's that have a ton of protein, on a cheaper basis than many meats.
"A cup of milk is a lot more nutritious than a cup of lettuce." - but maybe not more than a larger serving of Spinach, which is considerably cheaper.
"I have never claimed that fast food was cheaper than cooking at home."
The theme of this branch of the thread is that 'poor people can't afford to eat healthy' due to things like cheaper fast food' etc. - which is rubbish.
There are claims made by the USDA [1] which are totally misrepresentative, to the point of a lie. They claim anyone living >1 mile from a 'large grocery store' is in a 'food desert' - and that the problem lies in tons of 'Quick-e-mart' type places with terrible foods. The problem with their thesis is that '1 mile' is not far to go for groceries, that (almost) everyone does have access to fresh food, and that it's substantially cheaper than the crap in Quick-e-mart. The data essentially validates that 'poor people' are making bad nutritional choices quite on their own, not due to some kind of 'systematic problem'. They are buying crap from Quick-e-mart on their own volition, for whatever reason, not because they are coerced into it due to cost.
The fact is that a decent diet is available for relatively low cost to anyone that has the means to cook.
I takes a little bit of thinking, but not that much, and yes, some food products which should be more accessible (and possibly healthy) such as some processed foods, meats, dairy etc. are not very accessible, but they are also not necessary for a healthy diet.
> but maybe not more than a larger serving of Spinach, which is considerably cheaper
While 100g of spinach almost has as much protein as 100g of milk, it's also 3 times more expensive.
> The theme of this branch of the thread is that 'poor people can't afford to eat healthy' due to things like cheaper fast food' etc. - which is rubbish.
You are assuming that time costs nothing, which is incredibly untrue. How would someone who has to hold down two jobs, and whose nearest grocery store is 45 minutes out of there way, realize the low cost of these things?
This is simply not true.
In fact, the least expensive foods are fresh vegetables.
Aside from the homeless, most poor people have some means to cook as well, giving them access to an astonishing variety of meals.
Meat, milk, cheese, often expensive.
Fruit and veg is the cheapest thing in the store.
Processed/fast foods are more than likely the culprit in so many ways, it seems wherever you are in America, you're arms length from something massively processed, salty, fully of fats/sugars etc..
Same for Canada.